Michel Gondry Quotes

I don't like movies that are too manipulative. A lot of movies thrive on really pushing your buttons and making you hate the villain.

There is an amount of abstraction in my movies, and sometimes they don't really understand it until the film is finished.

Of course, from time to time, I want to do everything myself and be more involved on my own with the creative process. But I don't mind the collaboration at all.

In the '90s movies were so serious, and so stylistic and slick that I could not identify with them.

Every movie I do is challenging for me. There is some element of imaginative that you wouldn't have in a typical movie.

At school I was very shy. I wasn't funny really.

Orange is an underrated color, it's the second most underrated color after yellow.

I'm part of the consumer culture ... I'm just using the space I am given to express something that is out of the space so I'm part of the consumer system but I'm advocating stepping out. Which is a contradiction but I could be part of he consumer system and say, 'let's consume even more.'

Since I was a kid, I've liked to see how things are done. Sometimes when you see how things are done, it's like watching a 'making of' within the story. You see the physical aspect, the construction of things.

I think my imagination dictates the technologies I use. But at the same time, my imagination can be technologic. Sometimes I see a tool and I know immediately how to use it, but most of the time I use the tool for an idea I already have.

All these gadgets, the phone and the computer, they expose the inside of your brain in a way that's bad.

I think the purpose of test screenings is different for the studio and for the filmmaker. For the studio, I think they want to know whether the film works or not.

The beauty of doing film is that you construct whatever you do block by block and you can build something that will stay.

I like the days when all the filmmakers had was a film roll, a camera and a gangster. The Mack Sennett comedies were all like that. They'd create little teams to go out and shoot films.

The idea that competition is pointless is really something that speaks to me, especially in America where competition is really prominent and very overwhelming, and it doesn't bring the best out in you because what's going to push you is to bring others down.

My father had a Super 8 camera when I was a kid and sometimes he would use it. I did some animation with it. I did a lot of flipbooks.

Pop music is created by repression - and then the system takes it and makes even more money with it!

People who get to express their voice are paid by the people who make profit from it. So they're going to make you believe you have to spend your money buying these products otherwise you won't be happy. This is really wrong. Especially the implication it carries.

I don't like vampire movies or zombie movies. I went to see 'I Am Legend' with an ex-girlfriend the other day, and I immediately realised it was a zombie movie! You know what I mean? There are certain rules, and those rules are things that you've seen many times.

In my opinion, it's more interesting to see magic happening in a world that feels grounded. If the world is already crazy, then anything can happen. So it's better to start with something real.

I would define myself as being naive and perverse at the same time. And I think that if that is consistent it will make the tone consistent.

If you're not grown up enough to understand that a trailer is not done by the director, then fine. Judge the movie from the trailer.

If you take a child from South Africa and you put them in Boston, they're going to speak with a Boston accent. And so, that's a way to see the world as everybody is equal, not as a result of politics, but as human beings.

I want to explore new ideas and put myself in a place where I can finish a project that is more unusual or that doesn't seem doable.

I'm attracted to working with comedians because they don't have that stars' idea of what a hero should be. The downside is they're always addressing the camera too much.

When I saw The Matrix and other movies of this type, I wished I had been given the opportunity to express myself with all this technology and do something sort of big in scale, but the right material never really came my way.

I've dreamed a lot, but i'm not a very good sleeper.

The competition is not really friendly or peaceful. It leads to oppression in some ways.

I'm not against the technology at all, I just don't like to use it if it's just to mimic what you can do with traditional methods.

I like actors who don't have to think too hard about what they have to do to achieve their performance.

Sometimes it's interesting to see something that you're not used to seeing, which is the main ingredient of life, and it's removed from the usual entertainment. I think it's important to give the opportunity to people to witness the life of somebody who was not public.

I always wanted to create this community that would come and tell their own story, shoot it - and watch them. The idea is to not have one entity who creates the work, the project, and another entity who consumes it; the idea is people create their own work, like somebody cultivating his garden.

The problem is, with a lot of children's films, they are very commercial.

I've always loved 3D. In fact, as a kid, I was exposed to 3D at an early age because my grandfather was a specialist of 3D in cinematheques. And then my cousin put it in 'Science of Sleep' with toilet paper tube cities. But he was a specialist and I always wanted to do something in 3D.

Misinterpretation leads me to inspiration and creativity because I think my brain is trying to figure out some information that I'm confused about.

When I shoot actors, I have that dilemma. I want the actor to be good, and sometimes I have to push them to a place that isn't pleasant. I always think: 'Is it worth doing for the sake of the movie?' But I have to remember the bigger picture.

My goal was to show that even if people work in a garage or a supermarket, they have very funny things to say. We never hear their voices.

In a way, putting actors deep into this sort of complicated universe frees them from thinking about who they should be. They just are somebody.

I don't want to compare myself to him - I don't want people to see me as this great genius - but when I see Charlie Chaplin's movies there is a combination of drama, naivety and social meaning that I can see in myself, at a different level.

Perhaps my favourite story is 'Le Passe-Muraille' by Marcel Ayme. It's about a guy who wakes up with a weird faculty that means he can walk through walls. He's a very shy clerk, and he uses it to get revenge, or vent his frustration.

I'm always excited to work with actors.

You cannot do everything you want with the 3D camera, it's too big, and the digital quality of those cameras is a little bit limiting. With film, you have a lot more subtly, like with highlights and color. In terms of sharpness they (both formats) are very close; but in terms of nuance, of color and contrast, film is far superior.

I don't like the idea of competition - maybe because I kept losing them when I was a kid. Maybe it's better to be the one who loses?

I like collaboration, I like to incorporate other people's ideas [and] that's what happens when you do a big movie. Unless you're called Stanley Kubrick and you do an independent movie for like $200 million.

The MTV Video Awards were never about the video, but about the song. Most of the time it was just to glorify people for the wrong reason.

I think always my interest in making movies is to have something really technical mixed with something that was not so formal ... something free.

I find, surprisingly, that actors are liberated in their work if there's stuff going on around them, because they can't think too much about who they're supposed to be.

I love 3D a lot, I have a great interest in 3D, so if I am given the tools to do a project with 3D, it's a dream for me.

You need philosophy. It sounds a little pompous but I think when you direct a film, the only way to find a response to the questions you keep asking yourself is to have a philosophy.